While Enrique Peña Nieto marked his ballot in this month's election, his children posed for photos.

Enrique Peña Nieto married soap opera star Angélica Rivera in 2010, underscoring an image of him as a ladies’ man who grew up surrounded by beautiful, strong-willed women.

ATLACOMULCO, Mexico — Enrique Peña Nieto, the man who would be president, grew up in this hilly region of central Mexico surrounded by agricultural fields and mansions of the rich and powerful.

“Atlacomulco is home,” Peña Nieto said in an interview. “A small place, my hometown.”

Young and telegenic, with hair perfectly combed, Peña Nieto remains an enigmatic figure, despite the ubiquitous campaign pictures plastered across the country on buses, billboards, walls and bumper stickers. Despite high name recognition, relatively little is known about Mexico’s president-elect as he prepares to lead the nation of 112 million people and return the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, back to power after 12 years.

For Peña Nieto, analysts and those who know him say, bridging the gap between an old political system and the new party he talks about will help determine how effectively he will govern over the next six years. It will also offer insights into how far he will go to transform the image of a party with a reputation for cronyism and corruption into one of a new generation of public servants eager, as he has said, to win the trust of Mexicans by delivering on campaign promises to restore security and generate jobs.

“His challenge is to bridge two generations,” said Andrew Selee, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, who has met Peña Nieto on several occasions.

“He’s walked the desert with us, the PRI,” said Javier Treviño, a foreign policy adviser who ran Peña Nieto’s campaign in the state of Nuevo León. “He understands what’s it is like to be thirsty, to be away from power, and to be grateful for a second chance.”

Peña Nieto is scheduled to take office Dec. 1, when he begins serving a single six-year term.

His chief rival, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and his left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution filed a petition Thursday asking Mexico’s electoral court to invalidate the results of the July 1 presidential ballot, alleging that there was vote-buying and campaign overspending by the PRI.

Two sides of ‘Quique’

Peña Nieto was born in a hospital in Mexico City’s La Condesa neighborhood but grew up in Atlacomulco, about a 90-minute drive northwest of the capital. In interviews with residents and friends here who have known him for more than a decade, two depictions of him emerged.

One is of a hard-working young man, an entrepreneur who would sell popcorn on street corners and shine shoes, an orator so persuasive that some were convinced he would be a priest one day. He was always well-groomed and had impeccable manners. His mother, Socorro, told friends she would squeeze drops of lime juice on his hairline to help form his now-famous pompadour. He grew up listening to ABBA, the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever, the singer Emmanuel and the group Menudo.

“Everyone knew him as Quique,” short for Enrique, said Martín Orozco Basilio, 52, a secondary teacher in Atlacomulco who is from nearby San Felipe del Progreso. “You’d see him holding court in the plaza, always so polite and sure of himself.”

Widowed in 2007, Peña Nieto, 45, married popular soap opera star Angélica Rivera in 2010,underscoring the other depiction of him: that of a ladies’ man who grew up surrounded by beautiful, strong-willed women, including his mother and two sisters, and who had familial ties to some of the country’s most powerful men. Two uncles were governors; a distant relative was not only governor, but also his political godfather.

All were part of the so-called Atlacomulco Group, made up of some of the most powerful men in Mexico, men who over decades ran the country through backroom deals, singlehandedly picking local, state and federal officials, according to Harvard historian John Womack. Along the way, the small network also amassed great wealth amid accusations that included ties to drug traffickers. Five of the last six governors of Mexico state originate from this rural community.

One of those men is Arturo Montiel, who served as governor from 1999 to 2005 and mentored a young Peña Nieto, a distant relative. Peña Nieto served as finance director for two political campaigns in the state, did minor jobs in the Montiel government, and eventually rose to become a congressman in the state legislature.

Montiel later tapped Peña Nieto as the candidate to succeed him as governor. Peña Nieto’s election fulfilled a childhood dream, he said in an interview.

A campaign aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted that despite his ties to power, Peña Nieto represents a break from the past.

“He comes from a different mindset, a different generation, raised in a more plural, democratic society,” the aide said.

Peña Nieto said in the interview that one of his childhood dreams was to attend an Ivy League school, but his political career took off instead, and “now here I am.”

Some have questioned his intellect, especially after a campaign appearance at a book fair where he was unable to name three books that had influenced him. But others describe him as a savvy politician with keen instincts.

“You can hire brains, but not instincts,” said Tony Garza, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico who has met Peña Nieto on several occasions. “He’s about to don the sash.”

Dueling mottos

The state of Mexico is horseshoe-shaped and curves around Mexico City. It has the largest population of any state and is known for its fierce independence — and for a famous phrase. It was uttered by the late Carlos Hank González, who began his career as a teacher and went on to become a politician and PRI power broker. He also amassed a fortune that included a family mansion in Dallas and an estate in Atlacomulco that was so big that drivers used golf carts to round up children as they played hide-and-seek.

Hank González, who was a governor, mayor of Mexico City, a Cabinet member and one of the leaders of the Atlacomulco Group, used the phrase, “Un politico pobre es un pobre politico” — “A politician who is poor is a poor politician.”

One day last month, Peña Nieto struck a contrast to that phrase by repeating one he said his father, who died in 2005, raised him with: “In this world, you have to live to serve others, because lives without service to others aren’t worth living.”

It’s a saying that many here, including Carmen Martínez, 62, hope he doesn’t forget once he’s in office. As a candidate, Peña Nieto made a practice of signing pledges to build roads and clinics, part of an effort to win over a mistrustful nation.

“They’re all rats,” Martínez said of politicians, especially the men from Atlacomulco. “But Quique at least does what he says he’ll do. He signs every pledge.”